


The Guilty Ones

by amutemockingjay



Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Bad Communication, F/M, I'm not lying my mind is blank right now, I'm seriously bad at tagging I don't even know how to tag this, Louise is as good at adulting as I am which is to say not very good at all, Some angst, Tequila, enjoy the romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amutemockingjay/pseuds/amutemockingjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wasn't expecting him to show up at the restaurant after all these years. And she wasn't expecting it to hurt quite so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Guilty Ones

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this is my first time writing this pairing ever, so I'm a little self-conscious. It's heavily inspired by listening to Spring Awakening because I'm also theatre trash, particularly the song "The Guilty Ones." Also, I couldn't remember the actual age difference between Louise and Logan so I just made it six years. If it's more than that, sorry that the canon slipped my mind. Any and all feedback is much appreciated.

“I bet when you reconnect in your thirties, you guys will get married.”—Gene, Late Afternoon in the Garden of Bob and Louise

“Oh, I’m gonna be wounded; oh, I’m gonna be your wound. Oh, I’m gonna bruise you; oh, you’re gonna be my bruise.”—The Word of Your Body, Spring Awakening

* * *

 

Gene was wrong. The next time she saw Logan Bush was when she was twenty-one, and she was definitely not ready for it. Of course, when could you ever be ready for your archenemy to burst through the doors, some blonde girl on his arm?

“Louise.” He sidled up to the counter, where she was putting napkins into napkin dispensers. She resisted the urge to throw the entire dispenser at him—barely.

“What do you want?”

He grinned, looking so goddamn pleased with himself that she wanted nothing more than to slap him. Her palms itched to make contact with his pale skin. She shoved more napkins into the dispenser than was likely necessary.

“What do you think I want, Louise?” He leaned over the counter, and she could get a whiff of whatever soap he used, some forest-y bullshit that smelled like man, and made her head rush.

“To make everyone’s existence as miserable as possible,” she snapped back.

“No, sweetheart, that’s just for you.”

“Call me sweetheart again and I won’t be held responsible for my actions.” She could see dark spots in her vision, as red as blood.

“Uh, Logan?” The blonde girl twirled some of her stupid long hair around her manicured fingers. “I thought we were, like, getting a burger?”

He leaned in and kissed her cheek, and Louise resisted the urge to puke all over him and the counter. “Of course, babe,” he said. “Two cheeseburgers, please. And have Bob make them.”

“My dad is upstairs at the moment. You’re stuck with me. As much as I may wish otherwise.”

“Can I trust you not to poison them?”

“I don’t know; can I trust you to not be a douchecanoe?”

He laughed, showing off perfectly white, straight teeth. “Kaylynn doesn’t think I’m a douchecanoe, do you, babe?”

She leaned in to kiss him on the lips. “Never.”

Louise crossed her arms over her chest. “Disgusting.”

“Are you going to get that burger, or not?” Logan pushed some blonde hair out of his eyes. It was a wonder he could see at all, with how long his bangs were. Louise thought it made him look like an over privileged sheepdog.

“Coming right up,” she said as she retreated into the kitchen.

“I have to, like, you know, use the restroom. Do you, like, have one of those?” Kaylynn, or whatever her stupid name was, looked around the restaurant like she was searching for Jesus. Louise rolled her eyes and pointed towards the fairly obvious door.

“Over there,” she said in a monotone. She flipped the burgers.

“Oh, okay, like, thanks!” There was click and Kaylynn disappeared from sight.

Logan leaned on the counter again, elbows steadying his balance. “What happened to your bunny ears, hm?”

“I outgrew them,” she said shortly.

“Well, isn’t that a damn shame.”

Louise wished she had her ears now, that she could tug on the ends the way she always did when she got nervous. Because although Logan managed to piss her off more than any other human on this planet, he also made her nervous. Was it the fact that they weren’t kids anymore, that here she was at twenty-one, him twenty-seven, and they didn’t know how to dance around their own past? She shook her head. She was being ridiculous. They didn’t have a past beyond mutual hatred.

“…So, you should come.” Louise realized that Logan was looking at her expectantly.

“What?” She slid two burgers out onto the counter.

“The engagement party. You should come. Bring your family.”

Engagement? Louise’s head buzzed. Logan was engaged? The pain hit in a two-punch, right in her vital organs. She suddenly couldn’t breathe and her chest hurt, shooting pains down her left shoulder. Great. She was having a heart attack right here in the restaurant, and Logan was going to be the witness to her untimely death. She struggled to keep her voice level, while the world spun around her.

“I don’t think that’s the greatest idea. Your mother hates us.”

Logan shrugged his shoulders. “Cynthia hates everyone.”

The bathroom door opened and Kaylynn came back. Louise didn’t think it was possible to hate someone more than she hated Logan, but she was wrong. She hated this girl, with her stupid name and her honey blonde highlights and short pink skirt. As she picked up her burger, Louise could see the ring on her finger, the diamond certainly big enough to blind an unsuspecting bystander.

“Wow, this is like, really good. Wow.” Kaylynn polished off her burger in a way that would have been disgusting even if Louise didn’t hate her with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

Logan chewed his burger slowly; Louise could feel his eyes on her, studying her, taking her in. She reached for a pitcher that sat near the order counter. Slowly, she began filling it with ice cold water from the dispenser.

Logan pulled out his wallet. “How much?”

“Ten fifty,” she replied automatically, focused on the pitcher.

He put a twenty down on the counter. “Keep the change.”

“We don’t need your handouts.”

“Not a hand out. Consider it a tip for services rendered.” He turned to Kaylynn. Louise noticed that she wore way too much sparkly eyeshadow.

He was getting married. Getting married to some blonde thing who had half a functioning brain cell and probably used to be in a sorority. Her hands gripped the pitcher so hard her knuckles turned white. She didn’t think she could hate him as much as she did in this moment. Pocketing his money, she dumped the contents of the pitcher right over his head.

“What the fuck, Louise?!” He stood up, water dripping from his hair into his face.

She grinned, though the happiness was fleeting at the most. “Consider it a tip for services rendered.”

* * *

 

“T, I don’t think I can do this.” Louise balanced the laptop on her lap as she talked to her older sister on Skype.

Tina was in Boston now, working at a local news station, writing as always on the side.

“Do what?”

“Not slap the shit out of Logan. Why is he even back, anyway? I swear, it was like he was put on this Earth to torment me to the end of time.”

Her older sister blinked slowly, and adjusted her glasses.

“I mean, he’s getting married! Married.” Louise laughed bitterly. “I don’t know how anyone could put up with him for the rest of their lives.”

“And why does that bother you? It’s not like you’re the one getting married to him,” Tina pointed out.

“It’s just—I don’t know. It pisses me off.” Louise realized that she was not at her most eloquent, but she didn’t care. This entire thing was just too infuriating. She ignored the fact that before the anger, there had been something else entirely—the pain that had wracked her body. Tina didn’t need to know about that. Nobody needed to know about it.

“I think maybe you’re overthinking this,” Tina said.

“Me?” Louise forced a laugh. “Overthinking? When do I possibly overthink? That’s you, the last time I checked.”

“I mean, I guess that’s true. But I think there’s more going on than you actually want to admit.”

Louise placed her palm on her forehead. Why had she thought talking to Tina would help her?  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Tina shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t spend three thousand fantasy hours on Jimmy Jr. for no reason.”

“T, if you are suggesting that I like him, I’m leaving.”

“Well, it’s a definite possibility. You wouldn’t have gotten so angry if, say, Zeke came in with a girl.”

“I’m leaving.”  Louise began to close the laptop.

“Louise, wait—“

“Nope,” she replied, popping the ‘p’. “I’m out. Catch you later.” She closed the laptop perhaps a bit too hard. Sisterly advice was a bust. Time to deal with this in her own way.

First stop: the liquor store, for a bottle of tequila. Her mother was more of a wine person. Louise didn’t mind wine, but this called for something a little stronger. She got carded, as usual, because nobody could believe that with her petite frame, she was actually twenty-one.

Second stop: the little cove to the right of the wharf. She had discovered the cove in the sixth grade, and it had been the new secret hangout for her and her siblings. Now, with Tina in Boston and Gene out on the west coast working on music, she was the only one who ran to this hidden place. She perched on the outcropping of ocean-slick rocks, and watched the water rise and recede. She uncapped the tequila and drank straight out of the bottle.

Stupid Logan and his stupid girl and her stupid ring. Married. She never wanted to get married, to be tied down like that. This was a good thing. At least it wasn’t her, trapped in that hell.

She got a sudden flash, an image she wished would go away but wouldn’t. Her in a wedding dress, walking down the aisle. Logan waiting by the altar, smiling when he saw her. She took another drink, a long one, doubled over with the strength of the spirits. She was too sober to be thinking like this.

She didn’t know how much time passed, as she sat there, drinking and watching, occasionally skipping stones across the sparkling water. But she did know that she was drunk. If she wasn’t drunk, then there was something definitely wrong with the Earth’s axis.

“You’re in my spot.”

She stiffened as soon as she heard his voice. Ugh, was it possible to have a sound that made her cringe more than nails on a chalkboard? She put down her bottle.

“Fuck off, Logan,” she said.

“Not a chance.” He sat down next to her and picked up the bottle, downing some of the golden liquid.

“Seriously, I will push you off this godforsaken rock and hold you under the tide.” She snatched the bottle back.

“I’d like to see you try. Hell, I’d like to see you try and walk in a straight line right now.”

She rolled her eyes. “Like you’ve never been drunk.”

“Never said that. But I am wondering why you’re on my rock.”

“Your rock?! This rock has been mine since the 6th grade.”  She tried to drink a little more, but ended up spilling it down her shirt. Her hands were shaking.

“Try fifth grade. And I’m older than you, so it’s been mine longer.”

“God, you’re fucking annoying.” She held the bottle, but didn’t drink from it. Her head was spinning and she could feel her tongue loosening, secrets ready to be spilled. This always happened to her when she got drunk; she was consumed with the urge to say every little thing she had ever thought of. Probably why she preferred to drink alone.

He snatched the bottle out of her hands again and took a long drink, coming up sputtering. “This shit is nasty. Why are you even drinking this? You can do better.”

Louise shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not very picky.”

“Clearly, your taste level reflects this.”

“Yeah?” She leaned in, so close to him that she could smell his boozy breath. “Well, Logan, not all of us were born swigging Grey Goose.”

He laughed. “I actually hate Grey Goose.”

“Of course you do.”

He put the bottle down behind him. “This still doesn’t explain what you’re doing on my rock, getting hammered.”

“Maybe I don’t feel like explaining that right now.” Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, and she slurred her words together.

“Think you’re going to remember this in the morning?”

“I damn well hope not. You ruined my spot, Logan. Like you ruin everything.”

He had a faraway look in his eyes. “That’s kind of a shame.”

“I consider it a blessing.” She wanted to forget every single second of seeing that diamond ring, of everything it meant. And she wanted to forget how it made her feel. Because this was ridiculous. She was a Belcher. The toughest of them all. She sure as hell didn’t fall in love—

Love! She sat up straighter, as much as she could manage in her inebriated state. No. She didn’t love him. She hated him. She’s always hated him.

“I’m ready for more tequila now,” she murmured.

“Close your eyes,” Logan said.

“Why?”

“Just close them, Louise, and I’ll give you your tequila back.”

“Fine.” The world was spinning anyway, and although she knew more tequila was not the solution, she was feeling particularly self-destructive.

That was when he kissed her. She was caught by surprise, and nearly fell off her rock. He steadied her, his hands around her waist. Kissing him felt better than she would ever admit sober. When he pulled away, breathless, she made a small whining sound, a sound of wanting.

“Open your eyes, Louise.”

She did, the drunkenness fading away as Logan came back into view.

“Do you still want to kiss me?” He asked.

“Yes.”

She surprised herself with the answer, but she wondered if it was all inevitable. If maybe Gene was right. What had started out as a childhood hatred had slipped into something entirely different once they had grown up.

He was older. He was twenty-seven for Christssakes; she was twenty-one, a college drop-out running a restaurant. And he had a fiancée. What could he possibly want with her? She shook her head, trying to get rid of the thought, of the reasons why this was a bad idea. She realized how trapped she felt, how alone. Louise didn’t believe in signs, or divine intervention, or any of that bullshit. But maybe, just maybe, Logan coming back into the restaurant had meant something other than his desire for a burger.

He held out his hand to her, and she stood up tentatively.

“Let’s go back to my place,” he suggested.

She damn well knew what that meant. They were both drunk; she could see it in his glazed over eyes. Both wondering. Both yearning. Both too goddamn stubborn to admit that any of this could be real without tequila and regret and jealousy and fear and lust that tainted the air.

“What about Kaylynn?” She hated herself for asking, and she hated herself even more for wanting to be alone with him.

“She’s staying over with my mom. Wedd—they’re just busy.”

He kissed her again, light at first, picking up in heat as she responded to his touch. She pulled away, their foreheads touching.

"We shouldn’t do this in public.” She pointed out.

“Right, right.”

He held her hand as they wove through the streets, twilight dusk settling over the town. Breathless, lips swollen from kissing, pressed up against the wall, hands hand up her shirt. Wanton. Longing. Coming back to life. Slipping into his apartment. Clothes thrown this way and that, bodies pressed up against each other in a sudden rush. She gave in, letting herself feel everything, until she was spent.

* * *

 

She woke up with a raging hangover and no underwear. Next to her, Logan snored, face buried in his pillow. Head pounding, she took in her surroundings. Typical boy place. Dirty laundry in the corner. Dishes piled in the sink. The tangy boy smell of old socks. Her stomach churned in time to her headache. She needed coffee. Desperately.

She looked through the pile of clothes scattered on the hardwood floors for any trace of her shirt, bra, and pants. No such luck. Instead she grabbed an old button-down of Logan’s, and padded into the kitchen in search of coffee.

No coffeemaker. She poked through the cupboards. Instant. She shuddered. Disgusting, but she’d take anything at this point.

“Ughhhhhhh.” She could hear Logan in the other room. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and emerged with the coffee in one hand.

“Don’t even pretend that you’re as hungover as I am,” she said, taking a sip. Mud in a cup. “You had half the tequila I did. Also, why the hell do you only have instant coffee, you ass wrangler?”

Logan sat up, his hair askew in a way that she almost found adorable. Almost. “Did you seriously just call me an ass wrangler?”

She threw a wadded up ball of clothes at his head. He ducked. “Yes, I did. Because I can’t fucking find my clothes, and did I mention that I hate you?”

He had a dopey grin on his face. Louise wanted to slap it away. “Did anyone ever tell you that you look sexy like that?”

Now was not the time for Louise to mention that no one had called her sexy, ever. She was no virgin, but her limited sexual experience was usually in the dark, with fumbling hands and, in the case of Regular-Sized Rudy, copious use of an inhaler.

“Just shut up and help me find my clothes, dolt.”

He yawned and stretched, taking his time to get out of bed. “Leaving already?” He tried to wrap his arms around her waist, but she pushed him away. “No time for round two?”

The fight brewed under her skin, itching to be unleashed. All of the hatred of the past, all of the pain, all of the self-deprecation. Louise put the empty mug down. She wasn’t this girl. She couldn’t be this girl. The other woman. The mistake. The leftovers.

“I’m not just your piece of ass, you fucker.” She resumed her search for her clothing.

“Louise—“

“No.” She held up her hands against him, as if to ward away a hex. “Don’t. Don’t tell me how it meant something to you. That’s even worse.”

“But it did—“

“No!” She was on the verge of tears, and he didn’t deserve to see her cry. She never wanted anyone to see her cry. Thank god, she found her clothes. Except for her underwear. She threw on her jeans, her bra, her shirt. Fuck it; she’d go without underwear.

“I can’t be the other woman. I refuse to be. I won’t make you choose, either. Screw that. Just…go and marry Kaylynn. She seems to be more your type anyway.” She threw open the door and went down the stairs two at a time.  She didn’t turn around, didn’t dare watch him stand there, helpless.

It wasn’t until she got home, the tears already threatening to spill over, that she realized her shirt was inside out.

* * *

 

He didn’t come back to the restaurant for a year.

 A year that limped along painfully, slowly. A year where her heart would stop every time the door opened, wondering, hating, hoping that it would be him walking through the front door. Wanting to slap herself for being so goddamn pathetic. If this was love, she could do without it.

So what, if she was in love with him? He was going to be married, and that was that. She had to accept what she couldn’t change. And that feeling, that love, was so big and frightening and foreign that she would rather let it die than nurture it. More liquor was consumed that year than in previous years, but never tequila. Never again.

“Louise?” They were closing the restaurant for the night; Bob stood at the grill, cleaning.

“Yeah, dad?” She stood at the counter, rag in hand.

“Could you take the trash out in the back?”

She nodded, grabbing the trash and departing through the back door to the dumpster. The raccoons that Linda liked to follow had died years ago, only to be replaced by a next generation. The alleyway was empty; she threw out the trash and was turning around to head back inside when she felt the whisper before she heard it, his breath on her neck.

“I promise you, Louise, you will never be the other woman. Never again.”

She turned around. “Logan.” 

He looked good. She was overwhelmed with memories of that night, of how his lips had felt against her skin, of the way his light touch had left her shivering for more. She shook her head. She couldn’t think like this. Not again. She had let those fantasies die a year ago.

“What the fuck do you want?” She wished she could throw him in the dumpster along with her feelings.

“I wanted to talk to you.” He had his hands in his pockets.

“And say what?” She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice, but she could feel it there, trembling red-hot.  “There’s nothing left to say.”

“I told Kaylynn I couldn’t marry her.”

“Good for you.”

“Louise…”

“What?”

“What happened…the last time we saw each other. I didn’t want it to happen that way.”

She didn’t want to know his thoughts. His dreams. The pain was there, so palpable that she felt unsteady on her feet. “So this is the part where you tell me you wanted to do better. But you didn’t. We fucked. When we were drunk. You cheated on your fiancée with me. I was nothing more than a conquest.”

The words were harsh, but they were true. As much as she wished they weren’t. As much as she didn’t want to admit that she wanted so much more.

“I screwed up, Louise. I screwed up big time. When I brought Kaylynn into the restaurant, I wanted to rub her in your face. I thought…it would feel good. To be better than you. But then I saw you out on that rock and I wanted so much more. Not just to fuck you. But to hold you and kiss you and fall asleep next to you every night.”

Louise wanted to drown out his words. Walk away and pretend they had never happened, that she was not weak. But it was too late. The images were already there. Of waking up next to him in the morning. Of kissing him. Of teasing him. The image she saw that day on the rocks, of walking down the aisle towards him.

He took a step towards her. “Do you think you could forgive me? I know I did something terrible. I understand if you can’t. But I need to know, at least, even if the answer isn’t the one I want.”

“Forgiveness isn’t my forte,” she admitted. It never had been. She was the queen of holding a grudge, of not letting go. And Logan had been her archenemy for so long. She still hadn’t forgiven him for stealing her ears, all those years ago.

But…she wanted something different. It wasn’t the strongest desire in her mind, but it was a desire nonetheless. A desire to step outside herself, and grasp something happy. Because if she were going to be honest with herself, she loved him. She loved him and she wanted him and god, it was the worst decision to make, but also the best. A contradiction that could split anyone in two, but she had a certain fondness for contradictions.

“But I guess I could try,” she said. She reached out and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “This is the part where you kiss me.”

“I could manage that,” he murmured.

This kiss didn’t taste like tequila and desperation. Instead, as Logan’s lips met hers, she was filled with something else entirely: possibility.


End file.
